Slavery

What happens when a historian of slavery teams up with a computer scientist? A stunning visualization of the transatlantic slave trade.

Professor Adam Rothman, a historian of slavery at Georgetown University, and Matt Burdumy (GU ’15), a talented computer science major, joined forces in Professor Rothman’s History of the Atlantic World class to map more than 35,000 slaving voyages from 1500 to 1870. Under Rothman’s guidance, Burdumy used his skills as a programmer to geolocate data from the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database, and layer the data as a time-lapsed heatmap on a Google Map canvas.

Burdumy created a three-part visualization of the historical geography of the Atlantic slave trade. The first map shows the origin of slaving voyages, the second shows where slave ships embarked from West, West-Central, and Southeast Africa, and the third shows where the slavers disembarked their human cargoes in the Americas. The color spectrum from green to red shows the number and density of voyages cumulating over time. You can zoom in and out of each map for more or less detail.

While one can find many static illustrations of the historical geography of the Atlantic slave trade, this time-lapse visualization is the first of its kind.

National Museums Liverpool

International Slavery Museum

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ism/slavery/triangle.aspx

Hear the untold stories of enslaved people and learn about historical and contemporary slavery.

The Atlantic Slave Trade: Crash Course World History #24

In which John Green teaches you about one of the least funny subjects in history: slavery. John investigates when and where slavery originated, how it changed over the centuries, and how Europeans and colonists in the Americas arrived at the idea that people could own other people based on skin color. Slavery has existed as long as humans have had civilization, but the Atlantic Slave Trade was the height, or depth, of dehumanizing, brutal, chattel slavery. American slavery ended less than 150 years ago. In some parts of the world, it is still going on. So how do we reconcile that with modern life? In a desperate attempt at comic relief, Boba Fett makes an appearance.

The Atlantic slave trade: What too few textbooks told you - Anthony Hazard

Slavery has occurred in many forms throughout the world, but the Atlantic slave trade -- which forcibly brought more than 10 million Africans to the Americas -- stands out for both its global scale and its lasting legacy. Anthony Hazard discusses the historical, economic and personal impact of this massive historical injustice.

This Haunting Animation Maps the Journeys of 15,790 Slave Ships in Two MinutesUsually, when we say “American slavery” or the “American slave trade,” we mean the American colonies or, later, the United States. But as we discussed ...

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, The Valladolid DebateMelvyn Bragg and guests discuss the dispute in 1550 over enslavement of native Americans.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the debate in Valladolid, Spain in 1550, over Spanish rights to enslave the native peoples in the newly conquered lands. Bartolomé de Las Casas (pictured above), the Bishop of Chiapas, Mexico, was trying to end the encomienda system in which those who now owned the land could also take the people in forced labour. Juan Gines Sepulveda, a philosopher, argued for the colonists' property rights over people, asserting that some native Americans were 'natural slaves' as defined by Aristotle. Valladolid became seen as the first open attempt by European colonists to discuss the ethics of slavery, and Las Casas became known as 'Saviour of the Indians' and an advocate for human rights, although for some time he argued that African slaves be imported to do the work in place of the native people, before repenting.

Listen online or download the podcast

A Brief History of the Atlantic Slave Trade - Professor Alec Ryrie

Gresham College

Published on Nov 20, 2015

In this short introduction, Professor Ryrie lays a foundation if understanding for the Atlantic Slave trade. This is the most concise and clear sighted precis of this era of history. You can enjoy the full lecture on our website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Leopold's_Ghost

"King Leopold's Ghost (1998) is a best-selling popular history book by Adam Hochschild

that explores the exploitation of the Congo Free State by King Leopold II of Belgium between 1885 and 1908, as well as the atrocities that were committed during that period.

A Reader's Guide, with Questions for Discussion" at http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/readers_guides/hochschild_king_leo.shtml

HISTORY OF SLAVERY

http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ac41

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade

Atlantic slave trade

How We Learned That Slavery is Wrong - Professor Alec Ryrie

Gresham College

Published on Nov 20, 2015

Professor Ryrie explains how Christian involvement in the Atlantic Slave trade caused a profound crisis for followers and how it has shaped the Protestant Faith: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and... It seems obvious now, but it hasn’t always. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the old consensus that slavery was a mere fact of life, a tolerable evil, broke down, as Protestant activists opposed slavery ever more forcefully – and as other Protestants defended it ever more idealistically. As this lecture will explore, the result was not only the end of legal slavery but profound changes in Protestant Christianity which resonate to the present. The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and...

Slavery in Medieval Italy – The History Buff – MediumAlthough largely hidden from history, slaves were a significant but largely unrecognised class in Medieval Italy.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_medieval_Europe

Slavery in medieval Europe

Slavery had mostly died out in western Europe about the year 1000, replaced by serfdom.^{[dubious – discuss]} It lingered longer in England and in peripheral areas linked to the Muslim world, where slavery continued to flourish. Slavery became more widespread in Ireland throughout the 11th century, as Dublin became the biggest slave market in Western Europe.^[1] Church rules suppressed slavery of Christians. Most historians argue the transition was quite abrupt around 1000, but some see a gradual transition from about 300 to 1000.^[2]...

The Atlantic Slave Trade

Pieter EMMER, « The Atlantic Slave Trade », Encyclopédie pour une histoire nouvelle de l'Europe [online], 2016, published 14/05/2018,

https://ehne.fr/en/article/europe-europeans-and-world/atlantic-slave-trade/atlantic-slave-trade

Abstract

The Atlantic slave trade from Africa to the New World might well have been the largest maritime migration in history. The reason for this maritime movement was to obtain labour as the indigenous population of the New World had declined rapidly because of its lack of immunity against imported pathogens. In total about 12 million Africans were forcibly embarked and because of the high mortality aboard, about 10 million slaves were disembarked in: Brazil (45%), the British, French, Dutch, and Danish Caribbean (37%), Spanish America (11 %) and North America (4%). In spite of the growing volume of the trade and the increasing demand for slaves, the Atlantic slave trade was abolished during the first decades of the 19th century due to humanitarian pressures.

Summary

The economic basis of the slave trade

by Dr Alan Rice

http://revealinghistories.org.uk/africa-the-arrival-of-europeans-and-the-transatlantic-slave-trade/articles/the-economic-basis-of-the-slave-trade.html

The transatlantic slave trade transformed the Americas. Three factors combined to cause this transformation. Large amounts of land had been seized from Native Americans and were not being used. Europeans were looking for somewhere to invest their money. Very cheap labour was available in the form of enslaved Africans. The Americas became a booming new economy.

MET Museum

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Trade Relations among European and African Nations

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aftr/hd_aftr.htm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolom%C3%A9_de_las_Casas

Bartolomé de las Casas

Bartolomé de las Casas ( c. 1484^[1] – 18 July 1566) was a 16th-century Spanish colonist who acted as a historian and social reformer before becoming a Dominican friar. He was appointed as the first resident Bishop of Chiapas, and the first officially appointed "Protector of the Indians". His extensive writings, the most famous being A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies and Historia de Las Indias, chronicle the first decades of colonization of the West Indies. He described the atrocities committed by the colonizers against the indigenous peoples.^[2]